


new year's eve

by orphan_account



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Existential Crisis, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, New Year's Eve, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:35:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22077820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There is only one room in the Institute with the lights still on, and it is the Archivist’s office.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 4
Kudos: 112





	new year's eve

**Author's Note:**

> Did someone say. Jon and daisy bonding? I did. It was me
> 
> Mild spoilers for s3-4 but not the finale

Five minutes before midnight on the last day of the year, the Institute is still.

Most people had gone home (the ones that hadn’t already deserted the place, or been removed some way or another by a horrifying paranormal encounter) and the building was darkened and quiet. Outside, there were distant noises of cars rushing past, the occasional sound of celebration from faraway block parties, and soft rustlings and dubious sounds of ambiguous origin.

There is only one room in the Institute with the lights still on, and it is the Archivist’s office.

Jonathan was never fond of alcohol. The taste repulsive, the burn of ingesting it worse, he only turned to the bottle when there was truly no other way to spend his time, much like how he smoked only when there was nothing else to do with his hands.

Currently, however, he’s about a quarter way into a bottle of foul brandy he’d scrounged from Elias’ office (who was inconspicuously absent, only there in the morning to wish them all a monotone happy holidays before disappearing from everyone’s radar). It tastes bad, as expected. He keeps drinking it. There is something in him that’s hollow and gnawing and exhausted, and a foolish part of him is hoping brandy will help fill, or at least temper, that pain.

The devil on every alcoholic’s shoulder, he thinks darkly, pulling himself up from his slouched position against the wall with a sniff. The Institute is stiflingly silent. It’s not like he needs any more reminders of how lonely (or Lonely) it is around here, but even as a man accustomed to quiet, it’s really starting to bore into him.

Distantly, he wonders where everyone has gone, even if he could join them— before making the connection that they’re celebrating with friends and family, probably, and, well. To do that, he’d need friends or family, and he is sorely lacking in either category.

Holidays have meant little to him since the onset of horrifying experiences and unconnected red strings he’s had to deal with the past couple of years. Company-mandated breaks he politely accepts and subsequently works through. However, this year— this bitter, lonely year— Jon finds himself yearning for that kind of distraction, however shallow. He supposes he’d never been entirely rid of festivities back when Sasha and Tim and Martin were still… around. There’d always been at least a little decoration, maybe shared drinks, and excited talk of what would come about next year, and, well, look how that’d turned out.

Jon is struggling to think of how anything could get better, even with (especially with) the turn of the new year. He’s half-considering the brandy bottle as an option.

“Hey, Jon,” a voice comes from the doorframe— Daisy, leaning against it with casually crossed arms, looking… not amused, per se, but relaxed. “What are you doing on the floor?”

Jon glowers up at her, indeed, from the floor. “Thinking.”

Daisy hums and sidles over to sit next to him.

“Shall I?” she asks, gesturing at the brandy, and doesn’t really wait for an answer before delicately sliding the bottle out from Jon’s grasp before he can even consider drinking more.

He sighs through his nose and struggles to peer at her through the fog of his glasses. “Do you need anything?”

“It’s almost midnight, Sims.” She takes a small swig herself and grimaces. “Last minute of the last day of the year. That mean something to you?”

“Not as much as it used to. I struggle to believe this could change literally anything, regardless of… eh…” Jon makes a contemptuous gesture. “Long-held superstition.”

“I dunno if I’d call it that…”

“It’s the Earth rotating, the same way it’s rotated for thousands and thousands of years before us. That’s not an important milestone— thing. It's— it's—” he struggles to order the words in a way that will get his contempt across— “physics.”

Daisy hums around her bottle. “Physics is pretty amazing if you don’t know how it works.”

“I do Know how it works,” mumbles Jon, leaning into her shoulder. “I’m just so tired. And I…” he sighs. “I’m scared, I think, still. Of what this new year will bring us. Of what will happen to you and I and… I don’t know how to feel hope anymore.”

“We’ve survived this long,” says Daisy. “That’s pretty extraordinary, isn’t it? We’ve survived every minute of every single year we’ve been alive.”

The Beholding in Jon’s inner left ear helpfully chimes in that yes, this is an objectively true statement.

“A lot of bad thing have happened to us and will continue to happen to us. It’ll be tough. It might not get better, exactly, but—” she shrugs. “The rock bottom of my year was being put into an infinite coffin. And I survived that, because of you. So you know, I’m going to give us a little bit of credit.”

Jon hums. “Maybe.”

“And you’ve survived, what—” she begins counting off on her fingers. “Worms, fire, wax people, clowns, spooky storm men, several annoying deliverymen, did I mention the bloody coffin…”

He chuckles despite himself.

“Bad things will still happen,” Daisy admits quietly. “But we’re… Alive now. And maybe the turn of the year isn’t a great big thing like people make it to be, but it could be our milestone, you know?” She puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to keep fighting.”

Jon sighs. “Me too.”

She tilts her bottle in cheers. “Happy new year, Jonathan.”

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this in a fever pitch five minutes AFTER new year's day. cheers to new beginnings


End file.
